~QE 
21 


-NRLF 


B   M   Ibb   577 


BIOGRAPHIC  A  L   MKMOT  K 


OF 


CLAREXCE  KING 


1842-1001. 


SAMUKL,  FRANKLIN-KMMONS. 


ouK  Tine  XATIOXAI,  AcAi)i<nrY  OF  SCIENCE 
APKFL  2JJ,  100H. 


WASHINGTON,     D.    C. 

JUDD  &  nKTWKUvKR,  INC.,  PRINTERS 
1907 


BIOGRAPHICAL  MEMOIR 


OF 


CLARENCE  KING. 

1842-1901. 


BY 


SAMUEL  FRANKLIN  EMMONS. 


READ  BEFORE  THE  NATIONAL  ACADEMY  OF  SCIENCES 
APRIL  23,  1903. 


(4)  25 


EARTH 

SCIENCES 
LIBRARY 


BIOGRAPHICAL  MEMOIR  OF  CLARENCE  KING. 


The  greatest  advance  in  geological  science  in  the  past  half 
century  has  been  due  less  to  the  brilliant  generalizations  of  indi- 
vidual investigators,  of  which,  however,  there  has  been  no  want, 
than  to  the  systematic  organization  of  geological  work  which  has 
given  a  sounder  basis  for  theoretical  deduction  and  rendered  the 
work  of  the  individual  more  permanent  and  effective. 

It  was  not  until  the  truth  that  geological  studies  could  not  be 
profitably  confined  within  State  lines  or  other  artificial  bounda- 
ries had  been  proved  by  practical  demonstration  that  the  aid  of 
the  general  government  was  freely  and  permanently  enlisted 
and  thereby  geological  science  in  America  raised  to  its  present 
high  position. 

To  the  accomplishment  of  this  result  the  late  CLARENCE  KING 
was  the  foremost  and  one  of  the  most  active  contributors.  His 
influence  on  the  development  of  geological  science  in  this  country 
was  exercised  at  a  critical  point  in  its  history,  when  the  personal- 
ity of  the  man,  aside  from  his  purely  scientific  ability,  played  a 
much  greater  part  than  it  would  at  the  present  day,  when  the 
labors  of  men  of  his  type  have  already  borne  abundant  fruit  in 
impressing  upon  the  people  at  large  the  practical  importance  of 
a  scientific  guidance  in  the  development  of  their  material  re- 
sources. It  seems,  therefore,  appropriate  in  speaking  of  the 
man,  even  to  a  strictly  scientific  audience  like  the  present,  that 
the  more  personal  element  should  receive  attention. 

For  believers  in  atavism  a  consideration  of  King's  ancestry 
will  possess  a  peculiar  interest.  On  both  sides  lie  came  of  good 
English  stock  planted  on  New  England  soil,  where  conditions 
seemed  propitious  for  the  gradual  development  of  the  varied 
characteristics  that  showed  themselves  so  remarkably  combined 
in  this  brilliant  man. 

Daniel  King,  the  first  of  the  name  in  this  country,  came  to 
Lynn,  Massachusetts,  in  1637 — a  younger  son  of  Halphe  Kinge 
of  Watford,  in  Hertfordshire,  England. 

27 


788943 


~^\     NATIONAL  ACADEMY  OF  SCIENCES. 

Fifty  years  later  we  find  his  son,  Capt.  Daniel  King,  a  resident 
merchant  of  St.  Kitts,  in  the  West  Indies.  On  the  floor  of  St. 
George's  chapel  at  Basseterre,  on  that  island,  is  a  stone  bearing 
the  arms  of  the  King  family  and  recording  the  death  of  Benjamin 
King,  presumably  Daniel's  son. 

Benjamin  King,  a  grandson  of  the  first  Daniel,  moved  from 
Salem  to  Newport  in  the  first  half  of  the  eighteenth v  century, 
dying  there  in  1786.  In  him  already  was  Commerce  giving  way 
in  a  measure  to  Science,  for  he  displayed  strong  tastes  in  the 
latter  pursuit,  which  the  means  acquired  in  the  former  permitted 
him  to  indulge,  and  he  made  a  point  of  importing  from  Europe 
the  latest  philosophical  instruments.  It  is  a  family  tradition 
that  the  great  Benjamin  Franklin,  on  one  of  his  voyages  between 
Philadelphia  and  Boston,  visited  him  to  view  the  latest  electric 
novelty — a  Leyden  jar. 

Next  Art  came  to  pay  her  tribute,  for  Samuel,  son  of  Benja- 
min the  scientist,  was  a  portrait  painter  of  no  mean  repute,  and 
numbered  among  his  pupils  the  famous  Washington  Allston  and 
Malbone,  the  miniaturist. 

The  maternal  side  contributed  literary  culture  and  statesman- 
ship. 

The  Honorable  Ashur  Eobbins,  one  of  King's  great-grand- 
fathers, was.  born  at  Weathersfield,  Connecticut,  in  1761,  and 
died  at  Newport,  in  1845.  He  graduated  at  Yale  in  1782,  mar- 
ried Mary  Ellery  in  1791,  was  United  States  district  attorney  at 
Newport  in  1812,  received  the  honorary  degree  of  LL.D.  from 
Brown  in  1835,  and  from  1825  to  1839  served  his  country  with 
distinction  in  the  United  States  Senate.  He  was  distinguished 
as  an  orator  and  classical  scholar  and  was  a  friend  and  associate 
of  Daniel  Webster. 

William  Little,  another  great-grandfather,  was  a  graduate  of 
Yale  in  the  class  of  1777  and  received  an  honorary  degree  from 
Harvard  in  1786.  His  son,  William  Little,  Jr.,  was  already  dis- 
tinguished as  a  linguist  and  classical  scholar,  when  he  died  at  the 
early  age  of  40.  His  wife,  Mrs.  Sophia  Little,  Clarence's  grand- 
mother, from  whom  he  evidently  inherited  many  characteristic 
traits,  was  a  poetess  and  philanthropist,  a  woman  of  remarkable 
public  spirit,  energy,  and  decision  of  character.  She  retained 
her  mental  and  physical  vigor  in  the  most  remarkable  degree  up 

28 


CLARENCE   KING. 

to  the  time  of  her  death,  at  the  age  of  95,  in  1893.  Her  son, 
Bobbins  Little,  was  for  many  years  librarian  of  the  Astor  Library, 
New  York. 

The  immediate  ancestors  of  the  name  were  pioneer  merchants 
of  the  East  India  and  China  trade  in  the  first  half  of  the  last 
century.  His  grandfather,  Samuel  Vernon  King,  moved  from 
Newport  to  New  Yonk,  and  in  1803  was  senior  partner  in  the 
commercial  house  of  King  &  Talbot.  His  four  sons,  Charles, 
James,  Frederick,  and  David,  successively  replaced  him  in  the 
firm,  which  became  known  as  Talbot,  Olyphant  &  Company,  and 
later  as  King  &  Company.  Three  of  these  four  brothers  died  in 
the  far  East ;  the  fourth  fell  in  the  first  year  of  the  Civil  War. 

James,  the  father  of  Clarence,  though  induced  by  family  in- 
fluence to  follow  the  calling  of  a  merchant,  had  a  natural  leaning 
toward  scientific  studies.  He  married  Florence  Little  at  the  age 
of  21,  but  was  obliged  to  leave  his  young  wife  before  the  birth  of 
their  first  child  in  order  to  take  the  place  of  his  elder  brother  in 
the  house  in  China.  He  died  suddenly  at  Amoy,  China,  in  1848, 
leaving  as  a  legacy  to  his  wife  and  only  child  his  interest  in  the 
business  of  the  China  firm. 

The  young  mother,  left  a  widow  at  22,  devoted  herself  to  the 
education  of  her  son,  learning  with  an  inherited  facility  both 
classical  and  modern  languages  that  she  might  teach  them  in  turn 
to  him,  and  cultivating  the  taste  for  natural  science,  an  inherited 
quality,  which  early  showed  itself  in  the  child.  While  living  at 
Pomfret,  Connecticut,  whither  she  had  gone  that  he  might  have 
the  benefit  of  Dr.  Park's  excellent  school  for  boys,  the  .young 
Clarence,  then  only  seven  years  old,  came  to  his  mother  one  day 
in  January,  when  the  ground  was  covered  with  frozen  snow, 
and  asked  if  she  could  go  a  little  way  with  him  to  see  something. 
The  little  way  proved  to  be  about  a  mile  and  the  something 
a  remarkably  distinct  fossil  fern  in  a  stone  wall,  and  the  boy 
wished  his  mother  to  explain  to  him  how  it  came  there.  Books 
on  geology  were  consulted,  and  from  that  time  on,  she  writes, 
"my  rooms  became  a  veritable  museum,  where  all  kinds  of  speci- 
mens were  studied  with  enthusiasm."  In  his  later  school-boy 
days,  which  were  principally  spent  in  the  endowed  high  school 
at  Hartford,  Connecticut,  while  in  the  summer  vacation  trips 
in  the  Green  Mountains  were  devoted  to  camping  out -among 

29 


NATIONAL  ACADEMY  OF  SCIENCES. 

the  rocks  and  plants  he  loved  to  study,  his  mother  was  his  com- 
panion and  guide.  As  the  boy  developed  into  the  man  and  as 
the  relative  disparity  of  age  lessened,  there  grew  up  between 
them  a  close  intellectual  companionship  that  never  weakened 
during  his  lifetime.  She  was  a  woman  of  remarkable  intel- 
lectual caliber,  who  might  readily  have  made  a  name  in  literature 
had  she  had  that  ambition;  but  she  was  contented  to  live  in  the 
reflected  glory  of  her  son's  reputation.  On  his  side,  his  tender 
affection  and  solicitude  for  her  welfare  was  one  of  the  most 
marked  traits  of  his  character,  and  through  all  the  many  vicis- 
situdes of  his  checkered  life  his  first  thought  and  duty  was  to 
provide  for  her  comfort  and  happiness. 

In  the  crisis  of  1857  the  house  of  King  &  Company  became 
bankrupt  through  the  loss  of  a  steamer  which,  in  charge  of  a 
confidential  clerk,  was  carrying  a  large  amount  of  specie  to  meet 
their  liabilities  at  another  port,  and  the  property  which  had  been 
left  by  James  King  for  the  support  of  his  widow  and  only  son 
was  thereby  lost. 

Not  long  afterward  King  entered  as  a  clerk  in  a  business 
house  writh  the  idea  of  following  a  commercial  career,  but  al- 
though he  succeeded  in  satisfying  his  employer,  his  natural  taste 
lay  so  strongly  in  the  direction  of  science  and  literature  that  he 
could  not  satisfy  himself,  and  after  a  few  months'  trial  aban- 
doned the  attempt. 

In  1859  he  became  a  student  at  the  Scientific  School  at  Yale, 
then  a  much  less  prosperous  and  generously  endowed  institution 
than  at  the  present  day,  but  rich  in  the  possession  of  such  in- 
spiring teachers  as  James  D.  Dana  and  George  J.  Brush. 
Already,  according  to  the  testimony  of  his  fellow-students,  King 
showed  many  of  the  qualities  which  distinguished  him  above  his 
fellows  in  later  life.  He  studied  enthusiastically  both  in  books 
and  in  nature.  His  observations  of  natural  objects,  plants,  ani- 
mals, or  rocks  were  so  vivid  that  they  seemed  to  photograph 
themselves  upon  his  memory,  so  that  he  could  recall  the  picture 
at  wjll.  He  wrote  readily  and  with  delicate  literary  judgment 
vand  skill,  thanks  to  the  influence  of  his  mother's  teaching.  His 
love  of  outdoor  life  had  so  developed  a  naturally  robust  physique 
that  he  readily  excelled  in  all  athletic  sports,  especially  rowing. 

30 


CLARENCE  KING. 

In  whatever  he  was  engaged,  whether  study  or  recreation,  he  was 
naturally  accepted  as  a  leader  by  his  fellows. 

In  1862  he  was  graduated  from  Yale  College  with  the  degree 
of  B.  S.,  his  class  being  the  first  to  which  this  degree  was  ac- 
corded by  the  University.  During  his  college  life  his  strong 
natural  taste  for  scientific  and  artistic  study  of  the  greater 
features  of  natural  scenery  had  been  stimulated  by  reading  the 
then  popular  works  of  Tyndall  and  Buskin  on  the  Alps  of 
Europe,  and  Winthrop's  stirring  pictures  of  Northwestern  Amer- 
ica ;  and  an  even  more  direct  impulse  was  given  by  the  incidental 
hearing,  in  a  letter  to  Professor  Brush,  of  an  account  of  the 
ascent  by  the  members  of  the  Geological  Survey  of  California 
of  Mt.  Shasta,  then  supposed  to  be  the  highest  peak  in  North 
America. 

Immediately  upon  graduation  he  planned  a  boat  trip  from 
Lake  Champlain  down  the  St.  Lawrence  River  to  Quebec,  which 
was  carried  out  in  company  with  his  friends,  James  T.  Gardiner, 
Samuel  Parsons,  Jr.,  and  Daniel  Dewey,  in  the  autumn  of  1862. 
They  rowed  themselves  in  a  four-oared  boat  from  Whitehall,  on 
Lake  Champlain,  to  Quebec,  camping  out  en  route  and  support- 
ing themselves  largely  by  the  fruit  of  their  rods  and  guns. 

During  the  winter  of  1862-' 3  King  was  for  a  time  a  student 
of  glacial  geology  under  the  elder  Agassiz,  and  an  enthusiastic 
member  of  an  art  club  which,  under  the  guidance  of  Russell 
Sturgis,  devoted  itself  to  the  study  of  Ruskin  and  the  pre-Raph- 
aelite  school  of  art. 

The  final  impulse  to  the  step  which  had  the  most  influence 
upon  his  life  was  characteristically  given  by  his  solicitude  for 
the  welfare  of  another;  his  life-long  friend  Gardiner,  having 
broken  down  in  health  through  overstudy  and  an  open-air  life 
having  been  recommended  to  him,  King  planned  a  trip  across 
the  continent  to  the  sunny  skies  of  California.  In  May,  1863, 
the  two  young  men  proceeded  to  St.  Joseph,  Missouri,  then  the 
westernmost  terminus  of  railroads  and  the  starting  point  for 
emigrant  travel  across  the  plains.  On  the  train  between  Han- 
nibal and  St.  Joe  King's  kindly  attention  to  the  young  children 
of  a  well-to-do  emigrant  family  led  to  the  adoption  of  Gardiner 
and  himself  as  members  of  their  party.  The  route  followed  by 
the  party  led  up  the  valley  of  the  North  Platte  River  into 

31 


NATIONAL  ACADEMY  OF  SCIENCES. 

Wyoming,  and  thence  by  the  South  Pass  and  the  Sweetwater 
Mountains  across  Green  Elver  Valley  and  around  the  northern 
end  of  Salt  Lake  to  the  Humboldt  River,  in  Nevada,  correspond- 
ing thus  in  a  general  way  to  that  followed  in  later  years  by  the 
transcontinental  railroads  and  included  in  the  belt  which  the 
party  under  King's  charge  was  destined  to  survey. 

The  progress  of  the  wagons  was  necessarily  slow  and  about 
three  months  were  occupied  in  the  journey,  which  gave  the 
young  travelers,  who  were  mounted  upon  their  own  horses,  abun- 
dant opportunity  for  making  detours  along  the  route,  of  which 
they  fully  availed  themselves.  In  more  than  one  instance,  while 
exploring  the  neighboring  mountains,  they  ran  the  risk  of  cap- 
ture by  hostile  Indians,  but  the  experience  thus  gained  was  un- 
doubtedly of  great  service  in  King's  explorations  of  later  years.' 

After  crossing  the  deserts  of  Nevada  they  left  the  party  and 
made  a  detour  to  the  south  to  examine  the  already  famous 
Comstock  Lode  at  Virginia  City.  The  very  night  of  their  arrival 
their  lodging-house  took  fire  and  burned  so  rapidly  that  they 
barely  escaped  with  their  lives,  losing  everything  they  had  with 
them,  even  to  their  letters  and  clothing.  This  was  a  serious 
blow,  as  they  were  entirely  unknown  in  the  place ;  but  they  were 
equal  to  the  occasion,  and  having  been  fitted  out  by  hospitable 
miners  with  rough  clothing,  they  found  employment  in  one  of 
the  quartz  mills,  where  they  worked  until  they  had  saved  money 
enough  to  continue  their  journey.  Starting  anew,  they  crossed 
the  Sierra  Nevada  on  foot  and  reached  Sacramento  with  just 
enough  money  to  pay  their  passage  on  the  river  steamer  to  San 
Francisco. 

On  this  trip  they  met  by  chance  Prof.  William  M.  Brewer, 
then  first  assistant  of  Prof.  J.  D.  Whitney,  of  the  Geological 
Survey  of  California,  who  was  making  a  reconnaissance  along 
the  upper  portions  of  the  Sierra  Nevada  and  had  temporarily  left 
his  party  in  order  to  get  further  aid  before  going  into  the  north- 
ern country,  where  the  Indians  were  reported  to  be  troublesome. 
The  immediate  result  of  this  incident,  his  appointment  as  volun- 
teer assistant  geologist  of  the  recently  organized  Geological 
Survey  of  California,  was  one  that  had  a  far-reaching  effect  on 
King's  future  career. 

Although  a  few  enterprising  geologists  had  succeeded  in  pene- 

32 


CLARENCE   KING. 

trating  the  great  mountain  regions  of  the  far  west  and  had 
brought  back  vivid  accounts  of  the  phenomena  observed  at  various 
points,  the  great  region  beyond  the  Mississippi  Kiver  was  still 
geologically  a  terra  incognita,  when  in  1861  the  legislature  of 
California  had  appropriated  a  generous  sum  for  a  geological 
survey  of  that  State  and  made  Prof.  J.  D.  AVhitney  its  director. 

No  more  attractive  field  for  geological  exploration  and  study 
could  be  found  than  that  of  the  great  Sierra  Nevada,  from  which 
had  already  come  a  stream  of  gold  whose  volume  had  disturbed 
the  monetary  systems  of  the  world.  The  problems  presented  in 
its  structure  were  in  many  respects  new  in  the  experience  of  the 
American  geologist,  especially  in  the  field  of  vulcanism,  whose 
manifestations  in  the  eastern  part  of  the  continent,  where  stu- 
dents of  geology  had  hitherto  been  mainly  occupied,  are  com- 
paratively insignificant.  To  King,  full  as  he  was  of  youthful 
energy  and  enthusiasm,  the  prospect  of  exploring  the  summits 
of  this  great  range  and  repeating  in  the  Alps  of  America  the  ex- 
periences of  Tyndall  and  Ruskin  in  those  of  Europe  was  indeed 
a  powerful  inducement  for  joining  the  Survey,  and  how  abun- 
dantly and  fruitfully  he  embraced  the  opportunities  is  well 
shown  in  his  delightful  book  on  "Mountaineering  in  the  Sierra 
Nevada." 

His  first  experience  was  as  an  assistant  to  Professor  Brewer, 
when,  in  September,  1863,  they  explored  the  regions  in  northern 
California,  where  the  granite  crest  of  the  Sierra  Nevada  suddenly 
breaks  down  and  is  succeeded  by  broken  hills  and  lava-capped 
plains  out  of  which  rise  the  imposing  volcanic  cones  of  Lassens 
Peak  and  Mt.  Shasta.  Here  he  had  his  first  opportunity  for  a 
field  study  of  volcanic  rocks — a  study  in  which,  aided  by  the 
teaching  of  his  great  friend,  the  German  geologist  Von  Richt- 
hofen,  he  afterward  became  so  proficient  that  for  many  years  he 
was  recognized  as  the  highest  American  authority  upon  the 
subject. 

A  large  portion  of  the  summer  of  1864  was  spent  in  exploring 
the  southern  part  of  the  Sierra  Nevada*  around  the  Yosemite 
Valley  and  the  high  peaks  to  the  eastward  at  the  headwaters  of 
the  King  and  Kern  rivers.  Tn  climbing  one  of  the  highest  peaks 
of  this  group,  which  they  had  called  Mt.  Tyndall,  two  still  higher 
ones  were  discovered,  to  the  loftier  of  which,  evidently  the  cul- 

33 


NATIONAL  ACADEMY  OF  SCIENCES. 

minating  point  of  the  whole  Sierra,  they  gave  the  name  of  "Mt. 
Whitney"  in  honor  of  their  respected  chief.  This  King  at- 
tempted to  climb  later  in  the  same  season,  hut  when  near  the 
summit  he  found  his  further  progress  stopped  by  a  sheer  wall  of 
granite  which  rendered  its  ascent  from  that  side  impossible. 
To  show  the  great  unwillingness  of  the  man  to  abandon  any  im- 
portant enterprise  that  he  had  undertaken,  it  may  be  stated  that 
long  after  he  had  severed  his  connection  with  the  California 
Survey  he  twice  repeated  the  attempt  from  the  other  side  of  the 
range.  In  1871  he  supposed  he  had  attained  the  highest  point, 
but  a  storm  coming  up  just  as  he  had  reached  it,  the  clouds  in 
which  he  was  enveloped  hid  the  true  summit,  which  was  a  little 
higher  than  the  one  which  he  was  on.  Two  years  later  the  news 
came  to,  him  in  New  York  that  observations  by  a  member  of  the 
California  Survey  had  proved  his  error,  and  without  a  moment's 
delay  he  crossed  the  continent  and  climbed  it  again,  this  time 
reaching  the  actual  summit,  the  highest  peak  within  the  United 
States.  ^ 

In  the  summer  of  18(^  with  William  Ashburner,  the  distin- 
guished mining  engineer,  he  was  for  a  time  engaged  in  an  eco- 
nomic survey  of  the  Mariposa  land  grant  under  F.  L.  Olmsted, 
and  it  was  during  the  progress  of  this  work  that  he  made  the 
discovery  of  the  fossil  that  finally  settled  the  question  of  the 
age  of  the  auriferous  slates  of  the  Sierra  Nevada.  In  the  follow- 
ing winter,  the  Survey  funds  being  exhausted  through  lack  of 
appropriations,  he  with  his  friend  Gardiner  returned  to  the  east 
by  the  Nicaragua  route,  spending  two  weeks  on  the  Isthmus 
while  waiting  for  a  steamer  to  New  York.  On  his  arrival  he 
was  detained  for  a  long  time  at  the  house  of  his  stepfather, 
George  S.  Howland,  at  Irvington-on-the-Hudson,  by  an  attack 
of  malaria,  after  which  he  took  a  post-graduate  course  in  field 
and  practical  astronomy  at  Yale. 

Eeturning  again  to  California  in  the  autumn  of  1865,  the  two 
young  men  were  soon  after  their  arrival  engaged  as  geological 
and  topographical  engineers  for  an  exploratory  expedition 
through  Arizona,  made  by  General  McDowell  with  a  company 
of  cavalry.  This  expedition  occupied  the  winter  of  1865-^6  and,, 
carried  on  as  it  was  in  a  desert  country  infested  by  hostile 
Apaches,  involved  no  little  hardship  and  danger.  At  one  time, 

»  34 


CLARENCE   KING. 

while  carrying  on  their  scientific  work  out  of  sight  of  their 
escort,  they  were  ambushed  by  a  party  of  Indians  and  only  es- 
caped death  through  the  coolness  of  King,  who  first  prevented 
his  companion  from  making  what  he  perceived  to  be  a  futile 
resistance,  and  later  dela^yed  the  preparation  of  their  torture  by 
fire  by  exciting  the  curiosity  of  the  Indians  by  his  barometer, 
which  he  explained  was  a  new  kind  of  long-distance  gun,  and 
thus  gained  time  enough  to  allow  the  cavalry  to  come  in  sight 
and  effect  their  rescue. 

In  the  spring  of  1866,  further  work  in  Arizona  having  been 
rendered  impracticable  by  the  substitution  of  raw  infantry  from 
the  easi  for  the  California  cavalry,  which  had  hitherto  been  an 
efficient  guard  against  the  Apaches,  the  young  men  returned  to 
San  Francisco,  making  the  difficult  and  then  somewhat  dangerous 
journey  across  the  great  deserts  of  southern  California  alone, 
being  obliged  to  travel  at  night  and  lie  by  during  the  daytime 
that  they  might  not  be  seen  by  the  Indians  and  also  to  avoid 
the  great  heat  of  midday -sun.  After  working  up  the  results  of 
their  field  work  they  resumed  their  connection  with  the  California 
Survey  and  spent  the  following  summer  in  surveying  the  high 
Sierras  to  the  east  of  the  Yosemite  Valley.  It  was  during  this 
work,  according  to  Mr.  Gardiner,  that  they  planned  the  system 
of  rapid  surveying  by  triangulation  checked  by  astronomical 
locations  and  barometrical  measurements  which  was  later  so  suc- 
cessfully carried  into  practice  in  the  Exploration  of  the  40th 
Parallel. 

In  the  early  autumn,  while  still  engaged  in  this  work,  King 
received  news  of  the  sudden  death  of  his  stepfather,  Mr.  How- 
land,  and  at  once  started  home  to  be  near  his  mother,  who,  with 
three  young  children  left  dependent  upon  her,  for  the  second 
time  found  herself  reduced  from  affluence  to  comparative  poverty. 

At  this  crisis  he  found  himself  in  a  position  whose  difficulties 
would  have  daunted  a  less  courageous  and  sanguine  nature. 
Without  other  means  than  his  active  brain  and  the  experience 
gathered  during  his  four  years'  apprenticeship  on  the  California 
Survey,  he  had  not  only  to  make  a  career  for  himself,  but  to 
provide  for  the  comfort  of  those  who  naturally  looked  to  him  for 
protection  and  support.  That  experience,  however,  was  one  that 
was  invaluable  to  him  at  this  time.  He  had  familiarized  himself 

35 


NATIONAL  ACADEMY  OF  SCIENCES. 

with  the  best  method  of  overcoming  the  natural  difficulties  to 
be  met  with  in  carrying  on  scientific  exploration  in  the  west,  and 
thus  so  strengthened  the  inborn  self-reliance  of  his  nature  that, 
as  in  the  case  of  reaching  the  summit  of  Mt.  Whitney,  failure 
seemed  only  to  spur  him  on  to  further  effort. 

Not  long  after  his  return  to  the  east,  therefore,  he  determined 
upon  attempting  to  carry  out  the  project  that  had  been  gradually 
shaping  itself  in  his  mind  ever  since  he  first  crossed  the  conti- 
nent, that,  namely,  of  inducing  Congress  to  authorize  the  making 
of  a  geological  and  topographical  survey  across  the  entire  Cor- 
dilleran  system  at  its  widest  point,  and  thus  connecting  the 
geology  of  the  east  with  that  of  the  west.  Before  leaving  Cali- 
fornia he  had  submitted  his  plan  to  Professor  Whitney,  but 
the  latter,  while  thoroughly  appreciating  its  great  scientific  im- 
portance, had  refused  him  any  written  indorsement  for  the  reason 
that  he  believed  the  natural  obstacles  in  its  way  to  be  insur- 
mountable. 

King,  however,  confident  of  the  feasibility  of  his  plan,  felt 
that  then,  if  ever,  was  the  time  to  favorably  influence  the  minds 
of  our  statesmen,  when  their  best  endeavors  were  directed  to 
strengthening  the  liens  that  bound  the  various  parts  of  our  great 
country  together.  There  had  been  considerable  apprehension 
during  the  dark  days  of  the  Civil  War  lest  California,  physically 
isolated  as  she  was  at  that  time,  should  separate  from  the  other 
States  and  set  up  an  independent  government.  The  subsidizing 
of  the  transcontinental  railroad  was  the  first  step  toward  over- 
coming this  isolation  and  binding  her  more  closely  to  the  east; 
but  still  another  step  was  necessary »  the  resources  of  the  inter- 
mediate region  should  be  ascertained  and  a  foundation  laid  for 
the  development  of  the  mineral  wealth  locked  up  in  its  mountains 
and  desert  plains/the  importance  of  which  few  beside  himself 
were  able  at  that  time  to  appreciate.  In  no  other  way  could  this 
be  more  thoroughly  accomplished  than  by  such  a  scientific  ex- 
ploration as4ie  proposed.  Subsequent  events  have  abundantly 
proved  the  correctness  of  this  view,  for  nowhere  in  the  history  of 
the  world  has  there  been  recorded  such  an  amazingly  rapid  and 
permanent  development  of  a  comparatively  unknown  region  as 
has  been  effected  in  the  thirty  years  that  have  elapsed  since  the 
opening  of  the  transcontinental  railroad. 

36 


CLARENCE   KING. 

It  was  with  the  object  of  impressing  this  view  upon  Congress 
and  influencing  their  favorable  action  that  in  the  winter  of 
1866-?7  King,  then  barely  25  years  old  and  looking  still  more 
youthful,  presented  himself  at  Washington  armed  only  with  a 
few  letters  of  introduction  from  his  college  professors  and  from 
friends  whom  he  had  made  in  California.  It  was  to  his  earnest- 
ness and  the  magnetic  influence  of  his  personality  rather  than  to 
these  letters,  however,  that  was  due  the  favorable  impression  he 
soon  made  upon  the  leading  men  to  whom  he  first  addressed 
himself.  Chief  among  these  were  John  Conness,  of  California, 
and  Abram  S.  Hewitt,  of  New  York,  who  became  his  legisla- 
tive advisers  and  champions  upon  the  floors  of  the  Senate  and 
the  House  respectively;  General  A.  A.  Humphreys,  Chief  of 
Engineers,  eminent  not  only  as  a  military  commander,  but  also 
as  a  scientist,  under  whose  administrative  control  the  survey 
was  carried  on,  and  Spencer  F.  Baird,  Secretary  of  the  Smith- 
sonian Institution,  his  scientific  adviser,  all  of  whom  soon  became 
and  always  remained  his  warm  and  sympathetic  friends. 

On  the  second  of  March,  1867,  Congress  approved  a  bill  whose 
last  clause  authorized  the  Secretary  of  War  "to  direct  a  geological 
and  topographical  exploration  of  the  territory  between  the  Rocky 
Mountains  and  the  Sierra  Nevada  Mountains,  including  the 
route  or  routes  of  the  Pacific  Railroad."  No  definite  sum  was 
appropriated  at  that  time,  as  the  bill  provided  that  the  expense 
should  be  met  out  of  existing  appropriations,  but  it  had  been 
arranged  beforehand  that  certain  unexpended  balances  of  appro- 
priations for  surveys  for  a  military  wagon  road  across  the  conti- 
nent should  be  used  for  this  purpose. 

Five  days  later  King  received  his  formal  appointment  as 
Geologist  in  Charge  of  the  Geological  Exploration  of  the  40th 
Parallel,  and  at  once  proceeded  to  organize  his  corps.  As  all  the 
resources  of  the  country  were  to  be  studied,  animal  and  vegetable 
as  well  as  mineral,  this  included,  besides  geologists  and  topog- 
raphers, also  a  zoologist  and  a  botanist;  a  feature  novel  at  that 
time  was  the  addition  of  a  photographer,  to  which  position  a  man 
was  selected  who  had  had  wide  field  experience  with  the  Army  of 
the  Potomac  during  the  Civil  War.  An  escort  of  cavalry  was 
also  provided  as  a  guard  against  possible  danger  from  hostile 

37 


NATIONAL  ACADEMY  OF  SCIENCES. 

Indians,  which  proved  a  by  no  means  useless  though"  sometimes 
troublesome  adjunct. 

In  the  following  May  the  party  proceeded  to  California  by 
way  of  the  Isthmus  of  Panama,  but  it  was  near  the  end  of  July 
before  all  the  necessary  preparations  had  been  made  and  they 
took  up  their  march  from  Sacramento  across  the  Sierra  Nevada 
to  their  field  of  work. 

In  these  days,  when  the  West  is  covered  by  a  network  of  rail- 
ways, it  is  difficult  to  conceive  of  the  obstacles  that  had  to  be 
overcome  in  carrying  out  so  ambitious  a  work  as  that  which  King 
had  planned.  Of  the  transcontinental  railroads  but  a  few  miles 
at  either  end  had  yet  been  constructed.  The  territories  of  Utah 
and  Nevada  were  represented  on  most  maps  of  the  day  as  one 
broad  desert,  and.  it  was  considered  doubtful  whether  sufficient 
water  and  grass  could  be  found  there  to  support  a  camping  party. 

Through  such  a  country  it  was  designed  to  carry,  not  a  simple 
meander  survey  along  a  previously  chosen  route,  as  had  hitherto 
been  the  custom  in  military  explorations,  but  the  detailed  map- 
ping, both  topographical  and  geological,  of  an  area  about  100 
miles  in  width,  which  finally  extended  nearly  1,000  miles  in 
length. 

As  far  as  was  possible  to  human  foresight,  King  had  provided 
means  to  overcome  the  difficulties  liable  to  be  encountered. 
Guided  by  his  previous  experience  in  such  work,  he  had  person- 
ally supervised  the  preparation  of  even7  article  of  the  party's 
equipment,  from  the  scientific  instruments,  many  of  which  were 
specially  constructed  for  the  purpose  on  his  own  special  designs, 
down  to  the  minor  details  of  construction  of  wagons  and  pack 
saddles.  Nevertheless  there  were  many  times,  especially  in  the 
first  two  seasons'  campaigning  in  the  deserts  of  Nevada,  when, 
through  weakness  resulting  from  malarial  fever  contracted  in 
the  Sacramento  Valley  bottoms,  the  impossibility  of  obtaining 
potable  water,  a  shortness  of  food  supplies,  or  delays  from 
storms  or  other  causes,  discouragement  took  possession  of  differ- 
ent members  of  the  party.  But  King's  abundant  courage  and 
energy  never  failed  and  his  fertility  in  expedients  was  equal  to 
every  emergency;  so  that  he  gradually  impressed  upon  every 
member  of  his  corps  such  confidence  in  his  ability  as  a  leader 


38 


CLARENCE   KING. 

that  their  personal  devotion  to  him  and  their  faith  in  the -com- 
plete success  of  the  undertaking  knew  no  bounds. 

In  1869,  when  the  two  ends  of  the  transcontinental  railroad 
had  met  in  the  Salt  Lake  Valley,  the  work  of  the  Survey  had 
been  carried  eastward  to  the  boundary  of  Wyoming,  which  was 
the  eastern  limit  of  the  area  it  was  primarily  intended  to  survey. 
In  recognition  of  the  public  demand  for  a  direct  application  of 
the  results  of  government  geological  work,  King  had  caused 
special  study  to  be  made  of  the  then  developed  mining  districts 
of  the  West,  more  particularly  of  the  Comstock  Lode,  at  that 
time  recognized  as  one  of  the  three  or  four  greatest  silver  de- 
posits in  the  world.  This  work  was  pushed  rapidly  to  comple- 
tion and  was  issued  in  1870  in  an  elaborately  illustrated  quarto 
volume,  written  conjointly  by  himself  and  James  D.  Hague, 
under  the  title  of  "Mining  Industry."  It  was  described  by  one 
of  its  most  capable  critics  as  by  "itself  a  scientific  manual  of 
American  precious  metal  mining  and  metallurgy."  It  was  con- 
sidered a  classic  among  works  in  its  line,  and  has  served  as  a 
model  for  similar  monographs  since  published  under  government 
auspices,  which  have  been  important  factors  in  raising  the 
mining  industry  of  America  to  its  present  high  position. 

In  July,  1870,  while  the  members  of  his  corps  at  Xew  Haven 
were  engaged  in  writing  up  the  reports  of  what  was  supposed  to 
be  their  completed  field  work,  King  received  telegraphic  instruc- 
tions from  General  Humphreys  to  immediately  take  the  field, 
since  Congress,  of  its  own  impulse  and  without  solicitation,  now 
appreciating  the  importance  of  the  work,  had  voted  money  for 
its  further  continuation.  It  being  then  too  late  in  the  season  to 
carry  on  field  work  to  advantage  in  the  higher  regions  of  the 
Rocky  Mountains,  King  planned  an  exploration  of  the  great  ex- 
tinct volcanoes  of  the  Pacific  coast  in  order  to  complete  the 
record  of  the  volcanic  phenomena  so  abundantly  exhibited  within 
the  area  already  surveyed  in  the  Great  Basin,  and  during  the 
late  summer  and  autumn  special  studies  were  made  of  the  then 
practically  unexplored  peaks  of  Shasta,  Rainier,  and  Hood. 

The  field  work  of  the  seasons  of  1871-'2  carried  the  work  of 
the  Survey  across  the  Uinta  and  Rocky  Mountains  well  out  onto 
the  Great  Plains.  It  was  at  the  close  of  field  work  in  the  latter 
season  that  occurred  the  exposure  of  the  great  diamond  fraud  of 

39 


NATIONAL  ACADEMY  OF  SCIENCES. 

1872,  an  incident  that  brought  into  strong  relief  King's  de- 
cision of  character  and  readiness  in  an  emergency  and  made  him 
more  widely  and  favorably  known  to  the  general  public  than  any 
single  act  of  his  varied  career. 

News  of  an  apparently  well  authenticated  discovery  of  dia- 
monds in  sufficient  quantity  to  affect  the  markets  of  the  world 
had  been  circulated  throughout  the  public  prints  during  the  en- 
tire summer.  Its  location  had  been  kept  carefully  concealed, 
though  it  was  generally  assumed  to  be  somewhere  in  Arizona. 
A  company  with  ten  millions  of  capital  had  been  formed  to  work 
the  diamond  fields,  whose  stock  had  been  freely  subscribed  to  by 
some  of  the  most  prominent  men  in  the  East  as  well  as  the  West, 
while  a  host  of  other  companies  were  already  organized  ready  to 
float  their  stock  as  soon  as  the  position  and  character  of  the 
diamond-bearing  rocks  should  become  known. 

Late  in  the  autumn  the  writer  and  several  other  members  of 
the  40th  Parallel  Survey,  while  on  their  way  to  San  Francisco 
at  the  close  of  field  work,  became  possessed  of  a  number  of  clues, 
which  though  separately  of  the  most  indefinite  character,  when 
combined  together  enabled  them,  from  their  intimate  knowledge 
of  the  country,  to  fix  the  location  of  the  supposed  discovery  at  a 
certain  point  within  the  area  surveyed  by  him  during  the  previous 
year.  Whether  by  chance  or  intention,  the  location  selected  by 
the  supposed  discoverers  had  been  singularly  well  chosen  from  a 
geological  standpoint,  for  when  asked  where  within  that  area 
diamonds  would  most  probably  be  discovered,  King  at  once  fixed 
on  that  very  region  as  the  most  probable  one  for  their  occur- 
rence. It  was  because  of  its  scientific  importance  that  he  de- 
cided upon  an  immediate  investigation  in  spite  of  the  lateness 
and  inclemency  of  the  season.  It  required  over  a  week's  travel 
for  himself  and  assistants  to  reach  the  spot,  and  when,  after 
several  days'  careful  geological  investigation,  it  was  found  that 
the  diamonds  could  not  have  been  placed  there  by  Nature,  King 
realized  that  a  most  cleverly  planned  fraud  had  been  foisted  on 
the  public,  which,  if  not  promptly  and  conclusively  exposed, 
would  result  not  only  in  pecuniary  loss  to  innocent  investors, 
but  in  great  suffering  and  even  loss  of  life  to  the  many  that 
would  probably  rush  to  the  bleak  exposed  region  where  the  loca- 
tions had  been  made.  By  journeying  night  and  day  across  the 

40 


CLARENCE   KING. 

bad-land  country  he  reached  the  railroad,  and  proceeding  to  San 
Francisco  laid  his  facts  before  the  managers  of  the  company, 
offering  to  take  to  the  spot  with  his  own  outfit  any  experts  they 
might  be  willing  to  send  to  test  the  truth  of  his  statements. 
Their  journey  was'  rendered  doubly  difficult  by  the  great  bliz- 
zard of  that  year  that  overtook  them  while  in  camp,  but  the 
company's  engineers  fully  confirmed  the  conclusions  arrived  at 
by  him  and  his  party,  and  upon  their  return  they  were  promptly 
made  public  by  the  officers  of  the  company,  thus  averting  what 
bid  fair  to  be  the  most  widespread  and  gigantic  financial  calam- 
ity that  the  world  had  seen  since  the  Missouri  Bubble  of  Law. 

After  the  completion  of  field  work  of  the  Survey  in  1873  there 
was  necessarily  a  long  delay  before  the  abundant  collections  in 
the  various  scientific  branches  could  be  worked  up  by  the  re- 
spective specialists,  the  lithologic  collections  alone  numbering 
about  5,000  specimens,  for,  under  the  high  standards  fixed  for 
his  work,  it  was  only  to  the  highest  authorities  in  their  respective 
branches  that  King  was  willing  to  entrust  the  final  study  of  these 
collections. 

Thus,  under  his  instructions,  the  writer  spent  the  summer  of 
1874  in  Europe  conferring  with  the  heads  of  the  leading  Euro- 
pean geological  surveys  as  to  their  methods  of  work,  and  buying, 
at  King's  expense,  the  best  and  latest  geological  literature,  with 
which  at  that  time  American  libraries  were  but  scantily  pro- 
vided. Furthermore,  by  personal  persuasion  he  succeeded  in 
inducing  Professor  F.  Zirkel,  the  founder  of  the  science  of  mi- 
croscopical petrography,  to  visit  America  and  study  in  the  pres- 
ence of  the  colle'ctors  their  numerous  collections  of  eruptive  rock 
specimens,  for  at  that  time  there  was  no  geologist  in  America 
who  had  any  practical  knowledge  of  this  new  branch  of  geology. 

King  reserved  for  himself  the  final  summarizing  of  the  work 
of  his  assistants,  and  the  drawing  of  general  conclusions  and 
theoretical  deductions  therefrom.  This  he  did  in  the  winter  of 
1877-' 8  after  the  five  government  quartqs  and  two  great  atlases 
embodying  the  details  worked  out  by  his  various  assistants  had  r 
been  printed.  This  summary  was  published  in  a  volume,  enti- 
tled "Systematic  Geology,"  of  over  800  pages,  profusely  illus- 
trated by  reproductions  of  photographic  views  illustrating  typical 
geologic  phenomena  and  analytical  charts  representing  the  im- 
(5)  41 


NATIONAL  ACADEMY  OF  SCIENCES. 

portant  stages  in  the  geological  history  of  the  Cordilleran  system. 
It  was  probably  the  most  masterly  summary  of  a  great  piece  of 
geological  work  that  has  ever  been  written,  and  was  well  charac- 
terized by  its  most  competent  critic  in  the  following  words : 

"The  most  satisfactory  part  of  Mr.  King's  work,  next  to  its 
scientific  thoroughness,  is  the  breadth  of  view  which  embraces 
in  one  field  the  correlation  of  such  extended  forces  and  the  vigor 
of  grasp  with  which  the  author  handles  so  large  a  subject  with- 
out allowing  himself  to  be  crushed  by  details.  Hitherto  every 
geological  report  has  been  a  geological  itinerary  without  general- 
ization or  arrangement.  This  volume  is  much  more ;  it  is  indeed 
almost  a  systematic  geology  in  itself,  and  might  be  printed  ir* 
cheaper  form  and  used  as  a  text-book  in  the  technological 
schools." 

Aside  from  the  direct  contributions  to  science  embodied  in  the 
seven  quarto  volumes  that  contained  the  published  results  of  this 
great  survey,  King  exerted  a  most  important  influence  upon 
geological  work  in  this  country  by  the  high  standards  he  set  for 
it  and  his  practical  demonstration  of  the  possibility  of  living  up 
to  them.  Thus  a  topographic  survey  which  should  afford  an 
accurate  delineation  of  the  relief  of  a  country  had  not  hitherto 
been  considered  a  necessary  base  for  geological  mapping  either 
in  State  or  government  surveys.  -  A  system  of  rapid  surveying 
by  triangulation  and  the  use  of  contours  to  express  relief  was 
first  employed  by  him  in  making  maps  of  large  areas,  and  inaug- 
urated an  improvement  in  our  systems  of  cartography  that  has 
made  the  maps  issued  by  our  government  superior  to  any  in  the 
world.  ^/Ke  demonstrated  the  importance  of  the  general  use  of 
photography  as  an  adjunct  to  geology,  which  previously  had  not 
been  considered  practicable  because  of  the  labor  and  expense 
involved  in  transporting  the  necessary  apparatus  for  the  develop- 
ing of  wet  plates  in  the  field.  4)&t  even  greater  moment  was  the 
practical  introduction  of  the  methods  of  microscopical  petrog- 
raphy, supplemented  by  chemical  analysis,  in  the  examination  of 
rocks — an  innovation  which  marked  the  opening  of  a  new  era 
in  geological  study  in  the  United  States. 

His  mind  was  possessed  in  a  high  degree  of  the  quality,  known 
as  scientific  imagination,  that  enabled  it  to  grasp  almost  at  a 
glance  the  ultimate  bearing  of  observed  phenomena  on  the 

42 


CLARENCE   KING. 

broader  problems  of  geology,  and  thus  he  was  often  able  to  sug- 
gest to  others  profitable  lines  of  investigation  which  h^  himself 
did  not  have  time  to  follow  out.  Thus,  during  his  study  of  the 
glaciers  of  Mt.  Shasta,  he  made  the  observations  that  are  credited 
with  first  suggesting  the  true  origin  of  the  kettle-holes  and 
kames  of  New  England,  and  his  later  discovery  in  the  summer 
of  1874,  that  the  line  of  islands  extending  along  the  southern 
coast  of  Xew  England  from  the  heel  of  Cape  Cod  to  Staten 
Island  contains  remnants  of  the  terminal  moraine  of  the  great 
glacier  that  once  covered  the  northeastern  States,  had  much 
influence  in  inducing  the  later  systematic  studies  of  the  Conti- 
nental glacier  which  have  brought  aboui  the  most  important 
advance  in  the  science  of  glaciology  since  the  days  of  the  elder 
Agassiz. 

It  had  been  the  hope  and  ambition  of  King  and  his  associates 
on  the  40th  Parallel  that  the  quality  and  demonstrated  useful- 
ness of  their  work  would  be  such  that  it  would  ultimately  lead 
to  the  establishment  of  a  general  geological  survey  of  the  United 
States,  whose  permanence  would  be  assured  by  being  made  a 
bureau  of  one  of  the  executive  departments  of  the  government. 
This  result  came  about  much  earlier  than  either  of  them  had 
anticipated,  and  its  accomplishment,  singularly  enough,  was 
hastened  by  the  zeal  of  rival  leaders  of  different  government 
surveys  which  it  entirely  superseded. 

After  two  seasons  of  field  work  with  the  40th  Parallel  Survey 
had  demonstrated  the  practicability  of  geological  map-making 
in  the  West,  a  _second  survey  was  inaugurated  under  the  Engi- 
neer  Department  by  Lieut.  George  M.  Wheeler,  which  was  desig- 
nated "United  Stat&  Geographical  Surveys  West  of  the  100th 
Meridian."  In  1894  the  already  existing  "Hayden  Survey" 
adopted  King's  system  of  making  topographic  maps  as  a  basis 
for  its  geology,  employing  for  this  purpose  the  topographers  on 
the  40th  Parallel  after  their  work  in  the  latter,  survey  had  -been 
completed,  and  its  title  was  changed  to  the  "United  States  Geo- 
logical and  Geographical  Surveys  of  the  Territories."  The  fields 
of  work  of  these  organizations  were  not  limited  by  any  definite 
bounds,  as  had  been  that  of  the  40th  Parallel,  and  with  increas- 
ing popularity  each  became  desirous  of  surveying  the  regions 
which  contained  the  most  remarkable  and  striking  phenomena. 

43 


NATIONAL  ACADEMY  OF  SCIENCES. 

Thus  their  work  often  overlapped  and  was  duplicated,  and  their 
rivalry  finally  became  so  intense  that  the  influence  of  one  party 
with  Congress  was  used  to  .curtail  the  appropriation  allotted  to 
the  other.  As  a  final  result  of  this  rivalry  there  was  serious 
danger  of  a  reaction  in  the  feeling  of  Congress  toward  such  sur- 
veys that  would  result  in  cutting  off  all  government  aid  to  geo- 
logical work. 

In  this  crisis  King  was  appealed  to  as  a  disinterested  party, 
and  it  was  mainly,  through  his  influence  with  the  leading  scien- 
tific men  of  the  country  and  his  tactful  management  of  affairs 
in  Congress  that  the  danger  was  averted.  Congress  was  induced 
to  call  upon  the  National  Academy  of  Sciences  for  its  advice  as 
to  the  best  methods  of  carrying  on  the  various  scientific  surveys 
which  were  then  being  conducted  under  different  departments. 
Although  a  member  of  the  Academy  since  1876,  King  was  not 
appointed  on  the  committee  to  whom  this  question  was  referred, 
but  was  freely  consulted  by  its  members  in  making  up  their 
report. 

By  the  law  of  March  3,  1879,  the  present  United  States  Geo- 
logical Survey  was  established  as  a  bureau  of  the  Interior  De- 
partment, the  exact  language  of  the  Academy's  report  being 
adopted  so  far  as  it  related  to  geological  surveys,  and  the  previous 
organizations  were  thereby  discontinued. 

President  Hayes,  after  consultation  with  the  best  scientists  of 
the  country,  appointed  Clarence  King  as  the  first  director  of  the 
new  Bureau.  King  accepted  the  appointment  with  the  distinct 
understanding  that  he  should  remain  at  its  head  only  long 
enough  to  appoint  its  staff,  organize  its  work,  and  guide  its  forces 
into  full  activity.  At  the  close  of  Hayes'  term  he  offered  his 
resignation,  but  at  the  President's  request  he  held  over  until 
after  the  inauguration  of  Garfield.  The  latter  accepted  it  on 
March  12,  1881,  in  an  autograph  letter  expressing  in  the  warmest 
terms  his  appreciation  of  the  efficiency  of  King's  service  and  his 
regret  that  he  did  not  find  it  possible  to  remain  longer  in  charge 
of  the  Geological  Bureau. 

Brief  as  was  the  duration  of  his  administration,  his  influence 
being  exercised  at  the  critical  period  of  the  Survey's  existence,, 
left  a  lasting  impress  upon  it.  He^  outlined  the  broad,  general 
principles  upon  which  its  work  should  be  conducted,  and  its. 

44 


CLARENCE  KING. 

subsequent  success  has  been  in  a  great  measure  dependent  upon 
the  faithfulness  with  which  these  principles  have  been  followed 
by  his  successors.  His  belief  was  that  a  geological  survey  of  a 
great  industrial  country,  while  not  neglecting  the  more  purely 
scientific  side  of  its  work,  should  occupy  itself  primarily  with  the 
direct  application  of  geological  results  to  the  development  of  the 
mineral  resources  of  the  country. 

Under  his  direction  were  carried  on  the  examinations  of  the 
Comstock,  Eureka,  Leadville,  and  other  mining  districts,  whose 
importance  is  to  be  measured  not  solely  by  the  accurate  informa- 
tion which  they  afforded  of  these  particular  regions,  but  in  far 
greater  degree  by  their  influence  upon  the  whole  body  of  mining 
engineers,  in  teaching  them  the  practical  importance  of  a  study 
of  the  geological  relations  of  ore  deposits. 

He  also  planned  and  supervised  the  collection  of  statistics  of 
the  precious  metals  for  the  Tenth  Census,  a  work  which  has  never 
been  equaled  in  detail  or  scientific  accuracy,  and  whose  logical 
result  was  the  annual  collection  of  statistics  of  all  the  mineral 
resources  of  the  United  States,  which  has  been  carried  on  by  the 
Geological  Survey  ever  since  the  completion  of  the  work  of  the 
Tenth  Census. 

King  set  the  very  highest  standard  for  the  work  of  the  Survey 
and  showed  remarkable  judgment  and  knowledge  of  character  in 
his  selection  of  the  men  who  in  their  respective  branches  were 
best  fitted  to  keep  it  up,  as  nearly  as  possible,  to  this  standard. 
In  his  establishment  of  a  physical  laboratory  for  the  determina- 
tion of  the  physical  constants  of  rocks,  he  took  a  step  in  the 
direction  of  the  application  of  methods  of  exact  science  to  geo- 
logical problems  so  far  in  advance  of  the  average  standards  of4 
the  day  that  its  importance  was  not  generally  realized  until  long 
after. 

In  all  his  after  life  he  maintained  a  lively  interest  in  the  work 
of  the  Survey  and  kept  closely  in  touch  with  his  successors  in 
office,  who  frequently  consulted  him  on  important  questions  of 
policy. 

In  giving  up  his  official  connection  with  government  geological 
work,  King  was  doubtless  influenced  by  several  motives:  His 
many  years  of  strenuous  work  and  unusual  responsibility  had 
been  a  severe  strain  upon  his  health,  and  he  felt  the  need  of  rest 

45 


NATIONAL  ACADEMY  OF  SCIENCES. 

and  change.  Moreover.,  he  was  confident  that  he  could  render  a 
greater  service  to  geological  science  by  pursuing  the  theoretical 
researches  into  its  deeper  problems,  for  which  the  physical 
laboratory  he  had  established  would  in  time  furnish  the  neces- 
sary data,  than  by  devoting  his  time  and  strength  to  administra- 
tive duties.  Financial  considerations  doubtless  had  some  weight 
also,  for  under  the  new  law  his  official  position  shut  him  out 
from  any  professional  remuneration  beyond  his  salary,  and  that 
was  not  sufficient  to  enable  him  to  meet  the  obligations  he  felt  it 
incumbent  upon  him  to  assume  for  others. 

During  the  remaining  twenty  years  of  his  life  much  of  his 
time  was  necessarily  given  to  private  professional  work,  either  in 
personally  managing  and  developing  mining  properties  or  acting 
as  adviser  for  others.  In  this  work  his  ambition  was  to  accumu- 
late sufficient  capital  to  enable  him  to  pursue  unrestrainedly 
the  necessarily  expensive  experiments  needful  for  the  carrying 
out  of  his  chosen  line  of  investigation,  and  to  insure  the  comfort 
of  those  depending  upon  him.  Freed  from  the  confinement  and 
responsibilities  of  the  administration  of  a  great  survey,  he  was, 
moreover,  now  able  to  devote  more  of  his  time  to  the  cultivation 
and  indulgence  of  his  pronounced  literary  and  artistic  tastes; 
but  his  scientific  investigations,  though  of  necessity  frequently 
interrupted,  were  ever  present  in  his  mind,  and  never,  as  some 
have  erroneously  assumed,  abandoned. 

In  1882,  being  called  to  London  on  business  connected  with 
some  large  Mexican  mining  companies,  of  which  he  was  presi- 
dent, he  came  into  familiar  converse  with  the  leaders  of  the 
scientific  and  literary  circles  of  that  great  intellectual  center,  to 
•whom  his  work  was  already  well  and  favorably  known  and  his 
charming  personality  soon  endeared  him. 

The  greater  part  of  the  next  two  years  was  spent  there  and 
in  traveling  extensively  on  the  continent.  While  he  naturally 
came  into  contact  with  most  of  the  prominent  scientific  men  in 
Europe  and  recalled  with  special  pleasure  his  intercourse  with 
Sir  William  Thomson  (now  Lord  Kelvin),  whose  investigations 
into  terrestrial  physics  had  early  attracted  his  attention  and  ex- 
cited his  admiration,  he  was  perhaps  even  more  widely  known 
and  admired  in  Europe  for  his  literary  and  social  qualities  and 
as  a  connoisseur  of  art. 

4G 


CLARENCE   KING. 

In  1890  Brown  University  conferred  upon  him  the  honorary 
degree  of  LL.D.  That  he  received  no  public  recognition  of  his 
later  scientific  work  may  perhaps  be  ascribed  to  its  peculiarly 
unobtrusive  character,  which  gave  rise  to  the  erroneous  impres- 
sion that  -he  had  abandoned  science  altogether. 

In  1892  he  wrote  the  only  scientific  publication  of  his  later 
years  on  the  "Age  of  the  Earth,"  which  appeared  in  the  American 
Journal  of  Science  in  1893.  It  is  the  latest  and  perhaps  one  of 
the  most  profound  discussions  from  the  point  of  view  of  terres- 
trial physics  of  that  important  subject,  and  was  most  favorably 
received  by  such  great  physicists  as  Kelvin  and  Helmholtz. 

By  the  great  financial  disaster  of  1893  King,  in  common  with 
many  others,  suffered  severe  financial  losses,  and  by  the  failure 
of  a  national  bank  which  he  had  founded  the  greater  part  of  his 
accumulations  of  previous  years  were  swept  away.  In  the  follow- 
ing winter,  during  convalescence  from  a  serious  attack  of  nervous 
prostration,  he  spent  several  months  in  Cuba  at  the  country  house 
of  his  friend,  Henry  Adams,  the  historian,  during  which  he  be- 
came deeply  interested  in  the  political  condition  of  the  island 
and  visited  the  camps  of  the  revolutionists,  thus  becoming  per- 
sonally acquainted  with  their  chiefs.  The  sympathy  with  their 
cause  which  resulted  from  his  investigations  led  him  to  actively 
espouse  it  during  the  discussions  in  this  country  which  led  up  to 
the  Spanish  war,  both  in  personal  interviews  with  the  leaders  of 
the  administration  and  in  published  articles  in  the  "Forum." 

He  also  investigated  the  geology  and  economic  resources  of  the 
island,  which  so  interested  him  that  it  became  one  of  his  cher- 
ished plans  of  future  work  to  organize  a  geological  survey  in 
Cuba,  if  political  conditions  should  become  sufficiently  settled 
to  justify  it. 

During  his  later  years  the  great  stimulation  of  mining  in- 
dustry of  this  country  led  to  an  ever-increasing  demand  for  his 
services,  both,  as  expert  in  important  mining  investigations  and 
in  passing  on  the  value  of  properties  offered  as  investments  to 
capitalists,  demands  which  he  did  not  feel  justified  in  refusing. 
Such  work  often  involved  the  most  severe  and  even  dangerous 
strain,  and  in  this,  as  in  everything  else  in  which  he  was  engaged, 
King  never  spared  himself. 


47 


NATIONAL  ACADEMY  OF  SCIENCES. 

In  January,  1901,  he  undertook  the  examination  of  a  mining 
property  in  Missouri  which  had  been  sold  to  English  capitalists 
subject  to  his  approval.  An  attack  of  whooping  cough  and 
pneumonia  in  the  previous  month  had  left  him  with  a  slight 
tubercular  affection  of  one  lung.  The  weather  was  inclement 
and  the  examination  proved  unusually  long  and  laborious,  so 
that  at  its  close  it  was  found  that  tuberculosis  had  taken  so  firm 
a  hold  upon  his  system  that  he  was  obliged  to  abandon  all  busi- 
ness and  give  himself  up  entirely  to  the  attempt  to  recover  his 
health. 

After  a  fruitless  visit  to  the  tropics,  which  had  hitherto  proved 
a  balm  for  all  of  his  ailments,  he  attended  the  annual  meeting 
of  the  Academy  in  April,  1901,  and  then  went  West,  where  he 
,  spent  the  balance  of  the  year  in  southern  California  and  Arizona 
in  a  brave  though  hopeless  fight  against  the  inroads  of  the  dread 
disease. 

In  this,  with  a  thorough  understanding  of  the  probable  out- 
come of  his  illness,  he  displayed  the  same  cheerful  courage  and 
spirit  of  self-renunciation  that  had  characterized  his  whole  life. 
He  would  not  yield  to  the  desire  of  his  devoted  mother  to  hasten 
to  his  bedside,  fearing  the  effect  of  the  long  journey  in  her  then 
precarious  condition  of  health,  and  he  courteously  declined  the 
many  offers  of  his  friends  to  visit  him  and  cheer  his  loneliness. 
On  Christmas  eve  of  1901,  at  Phoenix,  Arizona,  he  finally  passed 
away,  quietly  and  without  suffering,  in  the  prime  of  intellectual 
life,  with  his  greatest  scientific  work  not  yet  fully  completed  and 
leaving  a  void  in  the  hearts  of  friends  that  can  never  be  filled. 

It  is  difficult  to  fairly  judge  King's  scientific  publications  in 
the  light  of  the  present  day,  for  they  were  written  just  before 
the  opening  of  an  era  of  great  change  in  the  methods  of  geo- 
logical investigation — a  change  which  has  thus  far  proved  de- 
structive rather  than  constructive  in  its  results.  Many  of  the 
fundamental  theories  of  geology  which  prevailed  at  that  time 
have  been  disproved  or  abandoned,  while  as  yet  there  is  no  gen- 
eral acceptance  of  those  which  have  been  put  forward  to  replace 
them. 

In  June,  1877,  he  delivered  the  address  at  the  31st  anniver- 
'  sary  of  the  Sheffield  Scientific  School  011  "Catastrophisni  and  the 

48 


CLARENCE   KING. 

Evolution  of  Environment."  It  was  a  protest  against  the  ex- 
treme uniformitarianism  of  that  day,  based  largely  on  the  geo- 
logical history  of  the  Cordilleran  System  as  developed  during 
the  work  of  the  40th  Parallel  Survey.  This  uniformitarianism 
he  characteristically  described  as  "the  harmless  undestructive 
rate  (of  geological  change)  of  today,  prolonged  backward  into 
the  deep  past."  He  contended  that  while  the  old  belief  in  catas- 
trophic changes  had  properly  disappeared,  yet  geological  history, 
as  he  read  it,  showed  that  the  rate  of  change  had  not  been"  so 
uniform  as  was  claimed  by  the  later  school.  While  a  given 
amount  of  energy  must  evidently  be.  expended,  he  reasoned,  to 
produce  a  given  eft'ect,  yet  the  expenditure  of  this  energy  might 
be  extended  over  a  very  long  time  or  crowded  into  a  compara- 
tively short  one ;  and  his  observations  showed  him  that  at  certain 
periods  in  geological  history  the  rate  of  change  was  accelerated 
to  such  a  degree  that  the  effect  upon  life  produced  was  somewhat 
catastrophic  in  its  nature. 

Of  his  great  work  upon  Systematic  Geology,  the  larger  part — 
that  which  outlines  the  geological  history  of  the  Cordilleran  sys- 
tem— stands  as  firmly  today  as  it  did  when  written,  as  a  correct 
and  authoritative  exposition.  In  view  of  the  circumstances  under 
which  the  field  work  was  originally  done,  its  essential  correct- 
ness, even  in  matters  of  minor  .detail,  is  considered  surprising 
by  those  who  have  since  had  occasion  to  make  detailed  studies 
of  portions  of  the  area  covered. 

In  the  more  theoretical  sections,  while  he  necessarily  did  not 
take  into  account  the  great  number  of  new  facts  which  have  been 
established  by  more  recent  work,  especially  in  the  domain  of 
microscopic  petrography,  he  showed  such  grasp  of  his  subjects 
and  such  originality  and  power  of  thought  that  his  views  consti- 
tuted not  only  an  important  advance  over  those  of  the  day,  but 
they  were  suggestive  of  the  lines  of  investigation  that  have  been 
most  fruitful  in  the  modern  advance  of  geological  science. 

For  instance,  in  his  discussion  of  the  reason  for  the  changes 
from  acid  to  basic  eruptives  within  the  individual  groups,  which 
he  proposed  as  a  variation  from  the  natural  order  in  age  of  vol- 
canic rocks,  as  laid  down  by  Richthofen,  he  advanced  views  very 
suggestive  of  the  modern  conception  of  differentiation  in  eruptive 
magmas. 

49 


NATIONAL  ACADEMY  OF  SCIENCES. 

Again,  in  endeavoring  to  account  for  the  formation  of  those 
types  of  granite  that  pass  into  gneiss  and  crystalline  schists  of 
essentially  the  same  chemical  composition,  but  which  show  no 
evidence  of  having  been  subjected  to  such  excessive  heat  as  would 
produce  actual  liquefaction,  he  called  in  the  agency  of  the  im- 
mense pressure  to  which  such  rocks  would  necessarily  have  been 
subjected.  While  the  long  years  of  combined  field  work  and 
microscopic  study  of  modern  petrographers,  made  since  King's 
theory  was  enunciated,  have  proved  that  the  structure  of  crystal- 
line schists  is  due  to  pressure,  they  do  not  go  so  far  as  he  did  in 
assuming  that  the  end  product  of  such  mechanical  pressure  might 
be  granite. 

Perhaps  his  most  enduring  theoretical  discussion  of  that  time 
was  that  on  hypogeal  fusion,  in  which,  accepting  the  validity 
of  the  physical  arguments  against  the  fluid  interior  of  the  earth, 
he  discusses  and  rejects  Hopkins'  theory  of  residual  lakes  and 
Mallett's  conception  of  local  lakes  produced  by  mechanical  crush- 
ing. He  then  advances  an  hypothesis  of  his  own  which  may  be 
called  that  of  a  critical  shell,  or  couche,  between  the  permanently 
solid  interior  and  the  outer  crust  of  the  earth,  which  is  above  the 
temperature  of  fusion  but  restrained  from  fusion  by  pressure. 
In  this,,  therefore,  the  opposing  forces  of  pressure  and  tempera- 
ture hold  themselves  reciprocally  in  equilibrium,  but  when  this 
equilibrium  is  disturbed,  as,  for  instance,  by  a  sudden  change  of 
the  relative  position  of  isobars  and  isotherms — say  by  local 
erosion  and  rapid  transfer  of  load  within  limited  areas — local 
lakes  of  fusion  would  be  created.  Iddings,  in  his  "Origin  of 
Igneous  Rocks,"  says  of  King's  treatment  of  this  subject:  "By 
the  breadth  of  his  treatment  and  by  better  and  fuller  data  he 
advanced  the  problem  of  the  origin  of  the  various  kinds  of  vol- 
canic rocks  far  beyond  the  point  reached  by  any  of  his  prede- 
cessors." 

In  his  chapter  on  Orography,  King  says,  in  speaking  of  the 
causes  of  crust  motion:  "I  can  plainly  see  that  were  the  critical 
shell  established  its  reactions  might  thread  the  tangled  maze  of 
phenomena  successfully,  but  I  prefer  to  build  no  farther  until 
the  underlying  physics  are  worked  out."  He  was  at  that  time 
already  very  strongly  impressed  with  the  imperfection  of  the 
then  existing  knowledge  of  terrestrial  thermo-dynamics  and  the 

50 


CLARENCE   KING. 

indispensability  of  more  exact  data  in  this  branch  of  science  for 
a  rational  discussion  of  the  fundamental  problems  of  geology. 

This  idea  found  a  practical  outcome  a  few  years  later  in  the 
establishment  of  a  physical  laboratory,  immediately  after  his 
assumption  of  the  Directorship  of  the  United  States  Geological 
Survey.  His  earnestness  and  energy  is  shown  by  the  fact  that 
instead  of  waiting  for  the  slow  action  of  Congress,  he  defrayed 
the  cost  of  the  delicate  apparatus  necessary  for  this  work  out  of 
his  own  pocket.  The  credit  of  the  brilliant  physical  investiga- 
tions carried  on  in  that  laboratory  is  naturally  due  to  Professors 
Barus  and  Hallock,  who  conducted  them,  but  it  was  King's 
acumen  and  good  judgment  that  was  responsible  for  their  selec- 
tion, and  his  action  that  made  it  possible  for  them  to  carry  on 
their  work.  To  himself,  as  he  says  ten  years  later  in  his  paper 
on  the  Age  of  the  Earth  (Am.  Jour.  Sci.,vol.  xlv,  January,  1893), 
he  reserved  the  privilege  of  "making  geological  applications  of 
the  laboratory  results."  The  experiments  on  the  physical  con- 
stants of  rocks  contemplated  were  to  be  directed  to  the  determina- 
tion (a)  of  the  phenomena  of  fusion,  (&)of  those  of  elasticity 
and  viscosity,  and  (c)  of  those  of  heat  conductivity,  each  consid- 
ered with  special  reference  to  their  dependence  on  temperature 
and  pressure. 

The  paper  on  the  Age  of  the  Earth,  mentioned  above,  is  his 
only  published  result,  and  was  but  an  earnest  of  what  he  had 
planned  to  do.  This  was  an  attempt  to  advance  to  new  precision 
Kelvin's  estimate  of  the  earth's  age  deduced  from  terrestrial 
refrigeration.  It  consists  mainly  of  a  mathematical  discussion 
of  the  earth's  thermal  age  as  determined  from  various  postulates 
presented  by  Laplace,  George  H.  Darwin,  and  Lord  Kelvin,  and 
based  on  Barns'  determinations  of  the  latent  heat  of  fusion,  spe- 
cific heat,  melted  and  solid,  and  volume  of  expansion  between 
the  solid  and  melted  state,  of  the  rock  diabase.  This  is  followed 
by  a  critical  examination  of  other  methods  of  determining  the 
earth's  age — by  tidal  retardation,  by  sun-age,  and  by  variations 
of  eccentricity.  After  a  careful  scrutiny  of  all  the  data  on  the 
effect  of  pressure  on  the  temperature  of  consolidation,  King  con- 
cluded that,  without  further  experimental  data,  "we  have  no 
warrant  for  extending  the  earth's  age  beyond  24  millions  of 
years,"  an  estimate  which,  as  the  result  of  a  somewhat  more  ex- 

51 


NATIONAL  ACADEMY  OF  SCIENCES. 

tended  discussion,  was  afterwards  confirmed  by  Lord  Kelvin 
himself.  (Smithsonian  Report,  1897,  p.  345.) 

His  further  investigations  along  the  same  general  lines  on  the 
fundamental  principles  of  upheaval  and  subsidence  were  in  aD 
advanced  stage  of  completion  when  they  were  cut  off  by  his 
untimely  death. 

It  is  practically  impossible  to  adequately  characterize  King's 
literary  work,  for  the  greater  part  of  what  he  did  was  never  pub- 
lished, and  very  likely  never  even  written.  It  was  his  habit  to 
work  out  in  his  head  any  subject  which  interested  him,  even 
down  to  its  minutest  details,  before  putting  a  pen  to  paper ;  once 
this  was  accomplished  to  his  satisfaction,  he  wrote  with  such 
ease  and  rapidity  that  the  words  actually  flowed  from  his  pen. 
Probably  one  reason  that  he  did  not  write  more  was  that  his  own 
literary  taste  was  so  refined  and  exacting  that  he  was  never 
thoroughly  satisfied  with  his  own  conceptions.  In  his  scientific 
writing,  there  was  generally  some  imperious  necessity  that  made 
it  urgent  upon  him  to  give  his  results  to  the  public  in  spite  of 
the  imperfections  he  might  still  see  in  them,  but  in  literature 
such  necessity  rarely  appeared.  What  he  did  publish  he  himself 
held  in  comparatively  light  esteem,  but  in  the  opinion  of  the 
best  literary  writers  of  the  day,  with  most  of  whom  he  was  on 
terms  of  friendly  and  intimate  intercourse,  his  writings,  and  even 
more  his  affluent  and  delightful  talks,  disclosed  a  literary  quality 
that  might  have  given  him  a  foremost  place  among  American 
,men  of  letters. 

His  one  literary  book,  "Mountaineering  in  the  Sierra  Ne- 
vada," went  through  more  editions  in  England  than  in  this  coun- 
try, and  was  very  generally  regarded  there  as  far  the  best  book 
of  its  kind  that  had  ever  been  written.  Of  it  Edward  Gary,  one 
of  our  most  discriminating  literary  critics,  has  said: 

"There  is  in  these  pages  a  vital  harmony  between  the  subject- 
matter  and  the  form.  It  cannot  be  analyzed;  much  less  can  it 
be  described  or  accounted  for;  least  of  all  can  it  be  resisted.  It 
stimulates  and  energizes,  while  it  charms  the  mind.  It  gives, 
in  its  own  way  and  in  its  field,  an  intelligent  reaction  akin  to 
that  given  by  certain  passages  of  Shakespeare  in  which  he  ex- 
plores the  depths  of  human  consciousness,  and  every  inflection, 


52 


CLARENCE  KING. 

every  cadence  thrills  with  the  solemnity  and  the  vastness  of  the 
subject." 

Of  his  occasional  articles  in  current  periodicals,  two  appeared 
in  the  Century  in  1886,  two  in  the  North  American  Review,  and 
three  in  Forum.  Of  the  latter,  two  on  Cuba,  published  in  the 
years  immediately  preceding  the  Spanish  War,  were  written 
under  the  impulse  of  strong  feelings  of  sympathy  with  the  cause 
of  the  insurgents,  with  whom  he  had  come  into  intimate  personal 
contact  during  the  winter  he  spent  on  the  island. 

Of  his  Century  articles,  one  was  a  delicate  tribute  to  his  closest 
friend,  John  Hay,  as  one  of  the  biographers  of  Lincoln;  the 
other,  a  short  sketch  of  his  search  for  the  "Helmet  of  Mam- 
brino"  for  a  fellow-Cervantista,  was  that  which  more  than  any- 
thing he  ever  published  disclosed  the  exquisite  delicacy  of  his 
literary  touch,  which  rivaled  that  of  Howells  or  James  and 
showed  an  even  rarer  and  more  refined  quality  of  wit  than  Bret 
Harte's. 

The  best  idea  of  the  estimation  in  which  he  was  held  by  his 
many  friends  and  associates  in  the  literary  and  artistic  world 
may  be  obtained  from  the  following  quotation  from  the  necrol- 
ogy of  the  Century  Association  of  ^"ew  York,  of  which  he  had 
been  a  prominent  member  for  the  last  quarter  of  a  century : 

"He  was  himself  a  blend  of  varied  qualities  and  gifts  that  were 
not  always  ready  to  keep  the  peace  one  with  another,  but  the  col- 
lective manifestation  of  which  was  to  his  fellows  a  constant  joy. 
The  talk  he  made  or  evoked  may  be  equaled  by  those  who  are  to 
come  after;  it  can  never  be  matched.  Its  range  was  literally 
incalculable.  It  was  impossible  to  foresee  at  what  point  his 
tangential  fancy  would  change  its  course,  /^rom  the  true 
rhythm  of  Creole  gumbo  to  the  verse  of  Theocritus,  from  the 
origin  of  the  latest  mot  to  the  age  of  the  globe,  from  the  soar  or 
slump  of  the  day's  market  to  the  method  of  Lippo  Lippi,  from 
the  lightest  play  on  words  to  the  subtlest  philosophy,  he  passed 
with  buoyant  step  and  head  erect,  sometimes  with  audacity  that 
invited  disaster,  often  with  profound  penetration  and  with  the 
informing  flash  of  genius,  fit  is  but  a  suggestion  of  his  rare 
equipment  to  say  that  in  his  talk,  as  in  his  work,  his  imagination 
was  his  dominant,  at  moments  his  dominating  quality.  Intense,, 
restless,  wide-reaching,  nourished  by  much  reading,  trained  in 

53 


NATIONAL  ACADEMY  OF  SCIENCES. 

the  exercise  of  an  exact  and  exacting  profession,  stimulated  by 
commerce  with  many  lands  and  races,  it  played  incessantly  on 
the  topic  of  the  moment  and  on  the  remotest  and  most  complex 
problems  of  the  earth  and  the  dwellers  thereon.  And  within 
a  nature  brilliant  and  efficient  beyond  all  common  limits  glowed 
the  modest  and  steady  light  of  a  kindness  the  most  unfailing 
and  delicate.  The  good  one  hand  did  he  let  not  the  other  know ; 
both  were  always  busy,  laying  in  many  lives  the  foundations  of 
tender  and  lasting  remembrance." 


54 


CLARENCE   KING. 

The  following  list  comprises   the  principal  published  works 
of  Clarence  King: 

Mountaineering  in  the  Sierra  Nevada.     Boston,  1870. 

Mining  Industry  (by  James  D.  Hague,  with  geological  contributions 
by  Clarence  King),  vol.  in  of  the  Fortieth  Parallel  Reports. 
Government  Printing  Office,  Washington,  1870. 

Active  Glaciers  within  the  United  States.  Atlantic  Monthly.  March, 
1871. 

On  the  Discovery  of  Actual  Glaciers  on  the  Mountains  of  the  Pacific 
Slope.  Am.  Jour.  $c/.,  3d  ser.,  vol.  i,  p.  157.  1871. 

Three  Lakes.     Poem  in  hexameters.     Privately  printed  in  folio,  1875. 

Notes  on  Observed  Glacial  Phenomena  and  the  Terminal  Moraine  of 
the  N.  E.  Glacier.  Proc.  Boston  8oe.  Nat.  Hist.,  vol.  xix,  p.  60. 
1876. 

Paleozoic  Subdivisions  of  the  Fortieth  Parallel.  Am.  Jour.  Sci.,  3d 
ser.,  vol.  xi,  p.  475.  1876. 

Notes  on  the  Uinta  and  Wahsatch  Ranges.     Ibid.,  p.  494. 

Catastrophism  and  Evolution.     Am.  Nat.,  vol.  n,  p.  449.     1877. 

Systematic  Geology.  Vol.  i  of  the  Fortieth  Parallel  Reports.  Govern- 
ment Printing  Office,  Washington.  1878. 

First  Annual  Report  of  the  V.  S.  Geological  Survey.  Government 
Printing  Office,  Washington,  1880. 

Production  of  the  Precious  Metals  in  the  U.  S.  17.  S.  Geol.  Survey,  2d 
Ann.  Report,  pp.  333-400.  Government  Printing  Office,  Washing- 
ton, 1882. 

On  the  Physical  Constants  of  Rocks.  U.  S.  Geol.  Survey,  3d  Ann. 
Report,  p.  3.  Government  Printing  Office,  Washington,  1883. 

Style  and  the  Monument.  North  Am.  Revieir,  November,  1885.  (An 
article  on  the  proposed  Grant  monument — anonymous,  but  known 
by  friends  of  Mr.  King  to  have  been  written  by  him.) 

Artium  Magister.    North  Am.  Review,  October,  1888. 

The  Age  of  the  Earth.     Amer.  Jour.  8ci..  vol.  XLV,  January,  1893. 

The  Helmet  of  Mambrino.    Century,  p.  154,  May,  1886. 

The  Biographers  of  Lincoln.     Century,  p.  861,  October,  1886. 

The  Education  of  the  Future.    Forum,  p.  20,  March,  1892. 

Shall  Cuba  be  Free?    Forum,  p.  50,  September,  1895. 

Fire  and.  Sword  in  Cuba.     Forum,  p.  31.  September,  1896. 


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